given the opportunity, to reply to it. It is also good practice to write book reviews.
To return to the matter of technology, let us consider first the question of our materials: Words, Korzybski’s book. Science and Sanity, is a great timesaver. The fact that a word is not the object it represents — that this desk, whatever it may be, is not the label ‘desk’ — fully realized, will save the student a lot of pointless verbal arguments. Look at abstract words that have no definite referent — words like communism, materialism, civilization, fascism, reductivism, mysticism. There are as many definitions as there are users of these words. According to Korzybski, a word that has no referent is a word that should be dropped from the language, and I would say, certainly from the vocabulary of the writer. For example, take the word ‘fascism’: what does it mean? What is the referent? Consider the phenomenon of Nazi Germany — the military expansion of an industrialized country; now consider South Africa — oppression designed to maintain a status quo; are these both fascism?
In short, we have so many different phenomena lumped under this word that the use of the word can only lead to confusion. So we can drop the word altogether and simply describe the various and quite different political phenomena. I have been accused of being an arch materialist and a bourgeois mystic. What do these words mean? Virtually nothing. And because they mean nothing you can argue about them for all eternity. Any words that have referents cannot be argued about; there it is — call it a desk, a table, call it whatever you like, but no argument is possible. All arguments stem from confusion, and all arguments are a waste of time unless your purpose is to cause confusion and waste time.
I have learned as lot about writing by writing film scripts. As soon as a writer starts writing a film script — that is, writing in terms of what appears on screen — he is no longer omniscient. He cannot for example inform the reader that ‘It was a clear bright day in May of 1923 in St. Louis, Missouri.’ How does the film audience know that the month is May, the year 1923, the locale St. Louis? This information must be shown on the screen, unless the writer falls back on the dubious expedient of the offstage voice. Or:’As he left his house and turned onto Euclid Avenue that morning, he felt a chill of foreboding.’ Did he indeed — and how is this to be shown on screen? Some incident must be presented that gave him this chill; perhaps someone passing him on the street who mutters something that may or may not be directed towards him — or he intercepts a malignant expression as someone passes on a bicycle. And such phrases as ‘words cannot convey’, ‘indescribable’, unspeakable’, cannot be shown on screen. You cannot get away with an indescribable monster. The audience want to see the monster. That’s what they are paying for. The ability to think in concrete visual terms is almost essential to a writer. Generally speaking, if he can’t see it, hear it, feel it, smell it, he can’t write it.
The impact of the mass media is more directly felt in films than in books. In the 1920’s, gang war was box office year after year, but remember that there were no television pictures of gang war on screen. There were only still pictures and newspaper accounts. It was front-page news and people were interested because it was something going on which they could not see directly. Had they seen it day after day, like the terrorist activity in Belfast today, they would have lost interest. Image loses impact with use. Anyone like to try making a film about the IRA in Belfast? Or writing a book on the subject for that matter? People are fed up with the IRA in Belfast. Or how about the Arab terrorists? Call it ‘Death in Munich?’ World War II — there were of course films on location, but not all that many, and no TV cameras at the front. There
To return to the matter of technology, let us consider first the question of our materials: Words, Korzybski’s book. Science and Sanity, is a great timesaver. The fact that a word is not the object it represents — that this desk, whatever it may be, is not the label ‘desk’ — fully realized, will save the student a lot of pointless verbal arguments. Look at abstract words that have no definite referent — words like communism, materialism, civilization, fascism, reductivism, mysticism. There are as many definitions as there are users of these words. According to Korzybski, a word that has no referent is a word that should be dropped from the language, and I would say, certainly from the vocabulary of the writer. For example, take the word ‘fascism’: what does it mean? What is the referent? Consider the phenomenon of Nazi Germany — the military expansion of an industrialized country; now consider South Africa — oppression designed to maintain a status quo; are these both fascism?
In short, we have so many different phenomena lumped under this word that the use of the word can only lead to confusion. So we can drop the word altogether and simply describe the various and quite different political phenomena. I have been accused of being an arch materialist and a bourgeois mystic. What do these words mean? Virtually nothing. And because they mean nothing you can argue about them for all eternity. Any words that have referents cannot be argued about; there it is — call it a desk, a table, call it whatever you like, but no argument is possible. All arguments stem from confusion, and all arguments are a waste of time unless your purpose is to cause confusion and waste time.
I have learned as lot about writing by writing film scripts. As soon as a writer starts writing a film script — that is, writing in terms of what appears on screen — he is no longer omniscient. He cannot for example inform the reader that ‘It was a clear bright day in May of 1923 in St. Louis, Missouri.’ How does the film audience know that the month is May, the year 1923, the locale St. Louis? This information must be shown on the screen, unless the writer falls back on the dubious expedient of the offstage voice. Or:’As he left his house and turned onto Euclid Avenue that morning, he felt a chill of foreboding.’ Did he indeed — and how is this to be shown on screen? Some incident must be presented that gave him this chill; perhaps someone passing him on the street who mutters something that may or may not be directed towards him — or he intercepts a malignant expression as someone passes on a bicycle. And such phrases as ‘words cannot convey’, ‘indescribable’, unspeakable’, cannot be shown on screen. You cannot get away with an indescribable monster. The audience want to see the monster. That’s what they are paying for. The ability to think in concrete visual terms is almost essential to a writer. Generally speaking, if he can’t see it, hear it, feel it, smell it, he can’t write it.
The impact of the mass media is more directly felt in films than in books. In the 1920’s, gang war was box office year after year, but remember that there were no television pictures of gang war on screen. There were only still pictures and newspaper accounts. It was front-page news and people were interested because it was something going on which they could not see directly. Had they seen it day after day, like the terrorist activity in Belfast today, they would have lost interest. Image loses impact with use. Anyone like to try making a film about the IRA in Belfast? Or writing a book on the subject for that matter? People are fed up with the IRA in Belfast. Or how about the Arab terrorists? Call it ‘Death in Munich?’ World War II — there were of course films on location, but not all that many, and no TV cameras at the front. There
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